


pastime passing excellent

by vigilantejam



Series: exercise our sum control [6]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Fitzier, Dundy On The Loose, Flirting, Karaoke, M/M, mad lads on the town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 16:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30024837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigilantejam/pseuds/vigilantejam
Summary: Dundy pushes the basement door open and they’re swallowed back into the club. There are bodies pressed together and crammed around the stage and up against the bar, all in good spirits and good voice, and not even the prospect of a good railing is going to drag Chas out of here now.karaoke with the ereboys for my terror bingo square'a sense of fun'
Relationships: Charles Frederick Des Voeux/Stephen S. Stanley
Series: exercise our sum control [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046140
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	pastime passing excellent

The spring evening breeze is cool and slips delicately under the loose collar of Chas’ shirt. He blows a final cloud of smoke into the air and scrapes the cigarette out on the bricks. He checks his phone and sees a text from Stanley.

_Where are you?_

He drops a pin on his location and fires off the reply and looks up to see Dundy shaking his head at him.

“Ew.”

“What?” Chas realises he’s been smiling to himself. “Shut up.”

Dundy ducks back inside and Chas follows, down the cellar steps, and past the photographs of actual musicians who would have either a good laugh or another heart attack at the aural crimes being committed tonight.

He looks back over his shoulder at the receding exit and the feet of pedestrians scuttling between tube stations. Usually he’d call back, and say something lewd about how he can be wherever and whatever Stanley wants him to be, maybe tease him a little _okay a lot,_ about what does and does not count as sexting. Dundy pushes the basement door open and they’re swallowed back into the club. There are bodies pressed together and crammed around the stage and up against the bar, all in good spirits and good voice, and not even the prospect of a good railing is going to drag Chas out of here now.

James is here, and Chas hasn’t seen him in for months, and he’s brought some crusty old men who it turns out can fucking _sing,_ and they're putting away whisky like no one he’s ever seen. They were introduced as Thomas and Francis - “Frauncis” in James’ slurred posh voice when he’s trying to be impressive - but they call each other Blanky and Frank. One Yorkshire accent, one Ulster. One heavy limp, one missing a fucking hand. Christ knows where James even found them. Soho is another planet. Blanky had crooned Sinatra for them like he was born to do it, and Francis had followed with a snarling ‘God Save the Queen’ to roaring cheers from the assembled landed gentry and minor aristocrats. Apart from poor George who looked like he might be sick under the table.

Chas glances over to the area James has commandeered at the front of the stage and sees Francis leaning close to speak in James’ ear, the fingers of his one good hand curled intimately around James’ forearm. Well that goes some way to explaining James’ recent absence at least. Chas looks at his phone again.

There’s a girl on stage now, one of the hen party taking up the back booths, belting impressively through some song Chas has never even heard before. 

“Shit, I’m next,” Dundy swears and darts away to where they’ve piled up all their bags and jackets, his hands rather worryingly in the process of undoing his trousers. Chas puts two and two together and comes up with a costume change and rolls his eyes at no one. Only Dundy would bring a second outfit to karaoke.

The girl finishes to cheers and applause and does a cute little bow as she blushes deep pink. She hands the microphone off to the hostess, a statuesque dark-haired woman with crimson lips James knows from _somewhere, god,_ and Chas can’t remember her name.

“Alright boys and girls,” she calls, her hand gripped around a clipboard list of songs and performers. “Keep that applause going and hold on tight to something or someone, because it’s Dun-deeeeeeee.”

Dundy emerges from the crowd and strikes a pose on stage, his long legs in white vinyl thigh highs that stretch up to the tiniest shorts Chas is convinced must actually be underwear, and a mesh crop top that leaves just as little to the imagination.

“Jesus christ,” Chas hears someone mutter behind him and he bursts into laughter.

As the music starts,[[1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30024837#note1)] the hoots of recognition go up from the group of his friends. It’s Dundy’s ‘Macho Man’, the stuff of legend and long overdue an outing.

     **Body body, wanna touch my body baby**

The singing really is secondary to the flexing and gyrating and Dundy manages precisely two lines before he drops his chin, winks over the top of his aviator shades and leaps into the crowd. He slinks from person to person, and gets a little too close to James, who lands a heavy flat-palmed slap to his bare midriff before he drapes himself across Blanky’s lap. He runs a finger along Blanky’s lower lip, pinches his cheek and raises a blush, and then kicks out his legs and springs away. He prowls over to the hen party and reaches them just as the chorus kicks in and they’re screaming so hard Chas thinks the bride might pass out.

    

**Macho, macho man**

**I got to be a macho man**

Chas is whistling through his fingers and watching several petite arms and as many hot pink and white feather boas entangle his friend when he sees Stanley walk through the basement door.

“Oh fuck,” he yelps and ducks behind Graham’s shoulder.

“What are you-” Graham starts.

“Stanley’s here.”

“No! Where?” Graham whips round to look and Chas tugs desperately at his shirt.

“Don’t fucking- Fitz!” Chas slips between the bodies to reach James and give him a pinch.

“Ow! To what do I owe the pleasure, Mr Des-”

“Favour, darling,” Chas interrupts. “Bump me up the list. Don’t care whose knickers you have to charm off. Sheena. Now!”

“No special treatment,” James says lazily but he’s smiling and already turning to the woman with the clipboard, and laying a conspiratorial arm across her shoulders.

Chas elbows his way back to Graham. “Get me a vodka. No fucking lime.”

“You know a please wouldn’t-”

“The most expensive one they’ve got, _please,_ Gorgeous, any second now he’s going to-”

Chas spins round to locate Stanley again and sure enough, Dundy has escaped the hens and has a new target. He’s pointing right at Stanley, and stomping towards him with an outstretched arm, mincing so hard he looks like he’s about to dislocate a hip.

Chas bolts over and reaches Stanley’s side just as Dundy is resting an elbow on his shoulder. He’s taller only by virtue of the heels, and his bicep is popping in Stanley’s face as Stanley just watches him with a slow blink of boredom. Standing beside him though, Chas can feel the tension in his body and the increasing likelihood of the little basement jazz club turning into an old surgeon’s theatre as Stanley opens and dissects one Henry Le Vesconte to the horror and entertainment of the masses.

Dundy undulates against Stanley’s rigid side and then twirls over to Chas, catching his face in his hand and squeezing it into a pout. He bends down close to Chas’ lips and is within millimetres of kissing him before he snaps his head to the side and winks at Stanley. Then he’s spinning and high-kicking away to terrorise the group at the bar.

     **Hey! Hey! Hey, hey, hey!**

“Wow,” Chas grins and winds his fingers around Stanley’s and raises his voice over the music. “Hello."

“Don’t ‘hello’ me, you ignored my messages,” Stanley says against his lips as Chas reaches on tip toes to peck a kiss.

Chas gets out his phone and now, standing by the doorway, he sees the notifications come in.

_Outside._

_Outside._

_Outside._

“Oh, look,” he says, smirking and holding his phone up to Stanley. “You’re outside.”

He gets only a steely grimace in return and bumps Stanley with his shoulder.

“I didn’t think you’d actually come down. It’s karaoke night,” he says, somewhere short of both an apology and an explanation.

“Fine,” Stanley replies.

He turns to leave but doesn’t make it far before Chas catches his wrist. “Well, now you’re here-”

Without missing a beat Stanley scoops an arm around him and kisses him _properly_ and a loud squeal goes up from the hen party.

“Did you think I meant ‘come and get me’?” Chas asks, giving him the doe eyes.

“Hmm.”

“And you came.”

“Shut up,” Stanley growls and his fingertips dig into Chas’ back as he starts steering him towards the exit.

“Wait, we can’t leave,” Chas grins and finally squirms away. “My song’s next.”

“Your song.”

Dundy makes it back to the stage, breathless and to more screams and applause.

“Alright Chaaaaaaaarles,” the hostess purrs into the microphone. “You’re up, and you owe me and Fitz something pretty.”

Graham appears from the bar, holding out a small plastic cup. Chas takes it and hands it over to Stanley.

“Graham, this is Stanley. Stanley, Graham. Thank him for buying you a drink.”

He gives Stanley another quick kiss and as he leaves hisses surreptitiously through his teeth at Graham. “Guard him with your life.”

He collects the microphone from _Janice, that’s her name,_ and leans in close to her.

“I’ll telephone Cartier in the morning,” he promises and laughs when her eyes fly wide.

It’s a million degrees under the stage lights and he feels his shirt sticking to his back almost immediately, but his music starts up and people are cheering, and amongst it all he hears Blanky bellow “Go on, lad” and it’s so fucking wholesome and _northern_ it dashes all the nerves out of him as he giggles and launches into the song.[[2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30024837#note2)]

     **I wake up every morning, stumble out of bed**

Chas can’t sing as well as James, or dance like Dundy and Graham, but what he lacks in talent he would say he more than makes up for in enthusiasm, and hopefully playing the laughs covers his struggles with the key. He can make out Dundy down at the front of the stage, folded over and hooting and simultaneously twisting round to try and get a look at Stanley.

     ****

**He takes me to a movie, or to a restaurant**

****

**To go slow dancing, anything I want**

Chas is trying to see past the lights to Stanley, and direct all his shimmying and babying that way, but it’s blindingly bright. He’s pretty sure Graham is still standing with him, and he hasn’t been abandoned or stalked back outside. He hopes they’re both getting a kick out of it, and that Graham is being his precious self and not laughing directly in Stanley’s face.

     ****

**My baby takes the morning train, he works from nine to five and then**

****

**He takes another home again, to find me waiting for him**

He mangles the final key change and the high note and Dundy stops laughing long enough to lead the cheering. Chas gives a deep curtsey and blows a kiss with a wave over in Stanley’s direction and hops off the stage. He plants a kiss on Janice’s cheek and James ruffles his hair and Francis and Blanky each clap his shoulders.

He breaks free and gets to the back of the room riding high, and Graham gives him a wink and a nod as he passes. When he reaches Stanley finally, the doctor is grave-faced and looking down his nose with heavy-lidded eyes.

“Was that supposed to be funny?” he asks, standing ramrod straight and not moving closer or raising his voice above a murmur for Chas to hear. The disdain drips from him and sends prickles over Chas’ skin. “Or charming?”

“It was a bit, yeah,” Chas says and bites on his bottom lip. “You didn’t like it?”

He sees Stanley narrow his eyes and the corner of his mouth twitches just a little.

“I always preferred ‘Modern Girl’,” Stanley says in the same dry voice, and Chas breaks into giggles and punches his arm.

“And I regret to inform you that your performance simply wouldn’t have cut it on Top of the Pops.”

“Gross,” Chas laughs again. “ _Top of the Pops._ You’re a thousand years old.”

“And you are a child, an infant, a spectacularly horrible and insignificant bacteria.”

“Did you come here to fuck me or not?”

Stanley gives a predatory smile and this time does lean closer to Chas to growl in his ear.

“Would I be successful in that endeavour?”

Chas groans and uses every bit of resolve he has to take Stanley’s wrist and pull him not straight out of the door and into the nearest alleyway, but towards the tables of his friends. 

“Come and meet the others,” he says, and quickly decides to add, “I promise they won’t make you sing.”

He looks over to where they’re all drinking and laughing and joining in on the chorus of ‘Shake It Off’. In the corner of his eye he catches Stanley pinching the bridge of his nose while his back is turned. He becomes aware of the rest of the noise in the room. The girl on stage is pretty good, but it’s only a matter of time before someone else is treating them all to nasal warbling and screeching microphone feedback. There are random ear-splitting squeals from the hen party, and clinks and hisses from the bar.

“Are you saying I have a terrible singing voice?” Stanley says when Chas turns back to him, and there’s a lilting half melody to his smooth baritone. “Or that I have no sense of fun?”

“I’m sure you have both,” Chas quirks his eyebrows.

“If we were somewhere else I might demonstrate.” Stanley hooks the tip of his forefinger into the waistband of Chas’ trousers and draws him closer still.

 _Oh fuck._ Chas swallows. “Okay, you’ve convinced me, let’s get out of here.”

“Whore,” Stanley growls, visibly relieved.

“Shut up, or I’ll put us down for Kylie and Jason,” Chas says. “You’re Kylie, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Stanley replies, his voice returning to such a resolute monotone that Chas has to laugh as he extricates himself from his grip.

“I’ll go say goodbye.”

“Take your time,” Stanley says and heads for the bar.

Chas rejoins his friends for a moment, and gathers up his jacket and bag to a chorus of boos and a dig in the ribs from Graham. James leans over and air kisses the distance between them.

“Don’t leave it so long next time,” he says.

“Likewise,” Chas replies with a little gesture of his head over James’ shoulder.

James gives him a knowing smile and just like that, his attention is back on Francis.

Chas turns to leave, ducking the disgusted look Dundy is giving him, when Stanley appears at his side with a large bottle. The pour spout is still attached and it’s mostly full. He reaches past Chas and places it on the table by Dundy’s elbow.

“Sorry to spirit him away, gentlemen,” he says, so friendly and charming that Chas can only stare at him in astonishment. “Please enjoy this replacement, which I’m sure will be more than adequate.”

Dundy grabs the bottle and pours out a generous measure into whatever it is he’s already drinking.

“Goodbye and good riddance,” he yells, suddenly significantly more cheerful and grinning broadly, and raises his cup at Stanley.

Graham is all jocular shoulder pats and pleasant smiles and George goes for a handshake so awkwardly that Chas ends up dragging Stanley away as a mercy to all of them.

“Was that James Fitzjames?” Stanley asks when they’re on the stairs heading up to street level.

“Yes it was, and how the hell do you know-”

“Mary-Ann did his surgery. He’s looking well.”

“Small world,” Chas says as they reach the pavement.

There’s no car waiting for them, and Stanley instead steers Chas to the left, weaving through people walking in the opposite direction.

“Where are you taking me?” Chas asks, jogging a couple of steps to keep up.

“Oh, I know a little place near here,” Stanley says. He catches Chas by the hand and turns down Dean Street.

**Author's Note:**

>   1. sing-a-long track #1 : [macho man - village people (youtube link)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO43p2Wqc08)   
> (i learned how to do footnotes for this. for _this_.) [[^](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30024837#return1)]
>   2. sing-a-long track #2 : [9 to 5 - sheena easton (youtube link)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_3vZYOYNYU)   
> (sheena easton's 1981 album _take my time_ is bangers only and you must listen to it.) [[^](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30024837#return2)]
> 

> 
> my self-indulgence knows no bounds and i won't apologise for it x


End file.
